I have officially started a new chapter in my life--my 30s!!! It's hard to imagine that this next chapter could be as eventful as the last. In my 20s, I graduated from college, got married, bought a house, worked a few different jobs (insurance, accounting, children's ministry), and became a stay-at-home mother of two! That's a lot of change, and I loved every second of it (except maybe that accounting part), but enough about that.
My birthday weekend was definitely bittersweet, as we were saying to good-bye to Grandma Downing the same weekend. She passed away on the 5th, and her visitation was on my birthday, the 9th. So it was definitely a weekend of roller coaster emotions. But we did have some happy moments. My family had a party for me on Sunday after church. My mom put together an awesome cake, made out of 30 angel creme donuts, which are absolutely my favorite!
My sisters got me this super-cute sign to hang outside my front door, which can be changed out seasonally.
My parents got me the pumpkin for the fall:
My actual birthday was a very emotional day because that was visitation day. My phone rang at 7:30 a.m., and my first thought was, "who is calling at 7:30?" Not that I minded, but that is out of the ordinary! My next immediate thought was, "oh yeah, it's Grandma Downing calling to sing me 'Happy Birthday' like she always does on our birthdays." And then I quickly remembered that couldn't be. Well, it ended up being my best friend Jennifer calling to say Happy Birthday and that she was thinking of me and praying for me. I couldn't even speak because I couldn't stop crying, but I really appreciated it. She said she hoped God would give me some joyful moments in our difficult day. And I definitely thought of that when my mom called to ask if the kids and I wanted to go get pumpkins and have lunch with my dad in Champaign. That was a much needed break from the grief of the day. We went and filled up a wagon full of pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. The kids had a blast running around and choosing them. Then, we went to Dos Reales for lunch-another favorite of mine!
Josh came home from work early to get ready for the visitation but we took some time to open presents. He did a good job picking out presents for me. I got a beach charm for my bracelet to remember our Myrtle Beach trip, a gift certificate for a massage, an Illini shirt, a pink Fiesta Ware plate, and Zumba for Wii (still on order). Even though it was a tough week, I felt very loved and still had lots of moments of joy in the midst of everything. I can't wait to see what this decade holds!
No comments:
Post a Comment